Rahul Gandhi raked up the Rafale issue linking it with the current crisis in the CBI

The ongoing CBI controversy has already kicked up a political storm in the country. Launching a frontal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi raked up the Rafale issue linking it with the current crisis in the CBI

by Chayan Kundu

The ongoing CBI controversy has already kicked up a political storm in the country. Launching a frontal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi raked up the Rafale issue linking it with the current crisis in the CBI. Before taking it to the streets, Rahul had opened his salvo against PM Modi on social media too. Now, the controversy has spilled over into Pakistan.

The Frustrated Indian, a prominent Right-wing page with more than a million followers on Facebook, claimed that Pakistan defence ministry’s official Twitter handle had retweeted Rahul's post on the CBI issue. Minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises Giriraj Singh also tweeted this taking an indirect dig at Congress president. The minister's tweet was also shared by hundreds on Twitter. India Today Fact Check team found that this claim was incorrect. The handle that retweeted Rahul's tweet was not the official handle of the Pakistan government, but a defence and military forum that focuses on Pakistan's defence.


The day CBI chief Alok Verma was sent on leave and later replaced by Nageshwar Rao, Rahul tweeted, PM removed the CBI director to stop him from investigating Rafale.

A day after, on Thursday, The Frustrated Indian posted a claim ...look at how Pakistan Defence’s official twitter handle is Rting Rahul Bhai, with a screenshot showing Pakistan Defence retweeting Rahul's tweet. People started sharing the post slamming the Congress president.

It is worth mentioning that Rahul has been constantly under attack by senior BJP leaders, alleging him of connivance with Pakistan to topple Modi. In September, BJP president Amit Shah said the Congress has formed a Grand Alliance (mahagathbandhan) with Pakistan against Modi.

India Today Fact Check team looked for the official Twitter handle of Pakistan’s defence ministry. We searched on Twitter with keywords Pakistan defence and came across two handles with the same logo. One of their bios says it is their old account and not functional now. The other one which retweeted Rahul's post calls themselves world leading online forum dedicated to defence, counter terrorism, military industry... in their bio. It also invites anyone for free membership.


This Twitter handle also gives a link to their website Defence.pk, which describes this site as a one stop resource for Pakistan defence, strategic affairs....

This website or the Twitter handle are certainly not used by the Pakistan government for any communication.

Contrary to the claim made by The Frustrated Indian, the Pakistan government’s all defence related official communications are done either through Twitter account of DG ISPR or through their website.

We found that The Frustrated Indian was formed in 2012 with a mission to build a strong right-wing political opinion in the country. As mentioned in the about section of the page, it garnered a membership mark of 5,00,000 in 2014 and was featured in an article by 'The Guardian'.

India Today Fact Check team concluded that the Facebook page, The Frustrated Indian, was wrong in claiming that the Pakistan defence ministry’s official Twitter handle retweeted Rahul Gandhi’s post on the CBI chaos.